Outspoken former Gold Coast chairman Tony Cochrane has described the Geelong concussion saga as a "train wreck" and backed an independent investigation.
Cochrane made it clear the AFL could not be both judge and jury on the case of Jake Kolodjashnij's controversial secret clause, given the current chairman of the AFL Commission, Craig Drummond, was Cats president at the time.
The AFL is on the same page, appointing a senior legal figure to act directly for the Commission as speculation about a suitable penalty swirls.
“Across the weekend, the AFL CEO and Commission met (minus Craig Drummond) and engaged independent legal counsel to assist the Commission's determination in response to Geelong's submission,” an AFL spokesperson told The Age.
On SEN radio on Tuesday, Cochrane said: “The first thing I would say is I think for everyone's sake now we need a completely independent inquiry held into this.
“The AFL can't be judge and jury here. That's not sustainable, and no one's going to - well, very few will take that as being a genuine search and seek mission on this.
“I don't have any ideas who that would be. There's plenty of very clever judges and ex-judges and what have you in the state of Victoria; I'm sure they can come up with somebody who could conduct a completely independent inquiry into it.
“Probably the most important person in the rules and regulations and oversight of our game is the current chair of the AFL Commission. The current chair of the AFL Commission at the time that this incident occurred - we'll call it an incident for the moment - was the president of Geelong."
Cochrane said the issue had to be "parked" as an internal AFL problem.
"It's got to have some independence to it. How you choose to do that is up to smarter people than me, but you've got to have some independence," Cochrane said.
“It's been at best a train wreck. Only diehard Geelong faithful would argue otherwise.”
